Cooking tips and techniques that come handy in your.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

This is one of the best cupcakes ever, in my opinion – I created the recipe myself and was surprised at how good it was. One of my friends said it was better than most shop-bought cupcakes he’d had!

I call it a Baby Ruth cupcake because it recreates the flavours of the US candy bar Baby Ruth – nougat, caramel, peanut and chocolate. The idea came about for a slightly strange reason….

I regularly take part in a blog challenge called Food ‘n’ Flix, where the person hosting chooses a movie, and we all cook or bake something inspired by that movie. This month Heather at Girlichef has chosen a classic, and one of my favourite films as a child – The Goonies.

I don’t know whether the generation younger than me has had as much exposure to the film as I did, but I hope that even kids today are watching it and enjoying it. Aside from a few politically incorrect characters that probably wouldn’t be made fun of in films today, the key themes of the film resonate today as much as they ever did: friendship, hanging on to childhood and growing up, and of course pirates, treasure and adventure!

Unbelievably, the film is 30 years old this year – the main actors, including Sean Aston and Corey Feldman, have gone on to some great things (Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings for instace) and while some aspects of the film look dated, on the whole it doesn’t.

I watched the film again after this challenge was announced and while I had the Baby Ruth idea in my head from the start, there were loads of other food references and things that could inspire me. I even found a website listing everything Chunk eats in the movie which is an awful lot!
I made notes throughout the film of the food references before I went on holiday and unfortunately can't find the piece of paper anywhere, though a few scenes do stick in my mind, such as when the boys are in the Fratellis' restaurant looking for ice cream when they find a dead body in the freezer, and of course the moment when Chunk - taken hostage by the Fratellis - bonds with their physically and mentally disabled brother Sloth by offering him a Baby Ruth bar.

Baby Ruths are made by Nestle and are a bit like a Snickers from what I can tell, with nougat, peanuts, caramel and covered in chocolate. I thought that would work really well in a cupcake and I was right! I made a vanilla cupcake, removed a spoonful of sponge from the centre when it was cooked and added a spoonful of soft nougat, used a salted caramel buttercream from Sugar and Crumbs, scattered the top with chopped peanuts and drizzled Choc Shot (a kind of chocolate sauce) over the top. It tasted unbelievable! The sponge cake was really light and fluffy, the nougat in the centre was amazing and the topping was a wonderful combination of flavours. I made these for a bake sale at work and they disappeared very quickly.

Unfortunately as this was a while ago I can't remember what recipe I used for the vanilla cupcake base but that part is pretty straightforward and you probably have your own recipe or can find one easily.

Here are the vanilla cupcakes before and after baking

You can see how I made the nougat in this blog post; you can do it in advance.

Spoon out a little of the centre of the cupcake, add the nougat and put the cake piece back in. It doesn't matter if it is a little messy as you will cover them with buttercream.

You can either make plain buttercream and stir in a spoonful or two of Carnation Caramel, or use the pre-flavoured mix I bought from Sugar and Crumbs. Their icing sugars use natural flavourings and come in an amazing range of flavours; the 250g bag was just enough.

Sprinkle with chopped peanuts and drizzle with chocolate sauce - I like Choc Shot but you could also use ice cream sauce. And serve - I can guarantee these won't last long!

I am also sharing this with We Should Cocoa, as the ingredient chosen this month by Karen at Lavender and Lovage is vanilla, and there is chocolate on top of the cupcake. The challenge was started by Choclette at Tin and Thyme.